Wayne Allwine

Wayne Anthony Allwine (February 7, 1947 – May 18, 2009) was an American voice actor, sound effects editor, and foley artist. He was best remembered as the third official voice of Mickey Mouse (following Walt Disney and Jimmy MacDonald) and the first official casting following the establishment of Disney Character Voices International in 1988. To date, he holds the record for the longest-running voice actor to play Mickey Mouse, having performed the role for 32 years. He was notably married to Russi Taylor in 1991, who voiced Minnie Mouse until her death in 2019.

Early life

Wayne Anthony Allwine was born in Glendale, California, on February 7, 1947. He is a graduate of John Burroughs High School, where he was particularly active in the school's musical theater department. His father was a barbershop quartet singer.

While in high school, he formed his own acoustic music group, The International Singers, which performed in clubs and colleges throughout the state. After graduating, he briefly toured with the instrumental rock band Davie Allan & the Arrows. In addition to playing rhythm guitar, he can also be heard on harmonica and sax mouthpiece on the 1968 track "Cycle-Delic". He later became an accomplished Dixieland jazz drummer, occasionally sitting in with Firehouse Five Plus Two alumni George Probert's Monrovia Old Style Jazz Band.

Career

In 1966, Allwine started work in the mailing room at the Disney studios, before working in the sound effects department with Jimmy MacDonald.

After working in the sound effects department for seven years, Allwine got a call from Disney for an open audition for the role of Mickey Mouse in late 1976, after a previous actor failed to show up. Upon auditioning for the role, Allwine became the third official voice of Mickey Mouse in 1977. He replaced Jimmy MacDonald, who in 1947 had taken over from Walt Disney himself, who had performed the role since 1928 as well as supplying Mickey's voice for animated portions of the original The Mickey Mouse Club on ABC.

Allwine's first appearance as Mickey was voicing the animated lead-ins for The New Mickey Mouse Club in 1977. His first appearance as Mickey for a theatrical release was in the 1983 featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol. In the same film, he voiced a Santa Claus on the street appealing for charity donations at the start of the movie, Moley (who appears with Ratty) "collecting for the poor", and one of the two weasel undertakers in the Christmas future scene.

He also starred in films such as The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Prince and the Pauper (1990) and ' (2004), and the TV series Mickey Mouse Works (1999–2000), House of Mouse (2001–2003), and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006–2012). He has provided Mickey's voice in the popular Kingdom Hearts series of video games prior to ', which was done in collaboration with Japanese video game company Square Enix. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, which was released several months after Allwine’s death, was the last game that used his voice (mainly with Mickey as a playable character in Mission Mode), and was dedicated to his memory in North American releases.

In addition to his voice work, Allwine spent much of his career as a sound effects editor and foley artist for Disney films and TV shows, including Splash (1984), Three Men and a Baby (1987); as well as Innerspace (1987), Alien Nation (1988), and ' for other studios. In 1986, he was awarded a group Primetime Emmy Award for his sound editing contributions to Steven Spielberg's anthology television series Amazing Stories.